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{
    "id": 426512,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/426512/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 158,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Ababu",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 108,
        "legal_name": "Ababu Tawfiq Pius Namwamba",
        "slug": "ababu-namwamba"
    },
    "content": "This is the first initiation of its kind anywhere in the world. Accountability Kenya provides a unique opportunity to join all the dots and lock all the links in the accountability chain. Thanks to Accountability Kenya, recommendations of this House should never be in vain ever again. We now have a channel to pass on the baton to specific players. For instance, to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission for further investigations, to the DPP for prosecution and to the Controller of Budget to withhold funds for accounting officers and governors that breach fiscal regulations and accountability standards. Indeed, Accountability Kenya provides a unique platform for the national Parliament to work closely with county assemblies to tighten the screws of oversight and accountability for county governments. So, even governors beware, wherever you are, in the expenditure of public resources. Let me also inform this august House that earlier today, 26th March, 2014, the hon. Speaker presided over a ceremony to officially commission and hand over to us the new Secretariat of African Organization of Public Accounts Committees (AFROPAC), the East African Public Accounts Committees (EAPAC) and Accountability Kenya and which will also co-ordinate activities of our PAC. This Secretariat, on the Tenth Floor of the Harambee Co-operative Plaza within this Parliament Square will henceforth be known as the Accountability Centre. Once again, the Committee wishes to appreciate the unwavering support it has received from the Parliamentary leadership that has enabled it to achieve those milestones. In conclusion, please permit me to mention a couple of things directly related to the work of PAC. The first one has to do with forestalling audit queries through pre- emptive intervention. A great deal of issues that end up as audit queries can be prevented well in advance. Indeed, pre-emptive action and preventive intervention are quickly becoming universal norms as best practices in financial accountability and public audit in many jurisdictions worldwide. PAC is keen on encouraging this concept as a best practice in Kenya, as one way of forestalling preventable audit queries. In applying this concept, PAC plans to start holding round table discussions with accounting officers on red flag matters that could end up in the statutory audit reports of the Auditor-General. The Committee seeks the support of this House in the introduction of this new public audit concept in Kenya. The second issue is to ensure that we live within constitutional timelines for audited accounts. The Committee is acutely alive to requirements of Article 229 of the Constitution which provides a tight nine month period within which the public audit cycle must be concluded and public accounts approved by this House. The Committee is also cognizant of the implications of Article 203 of the Constitution which provides that division of revenue between the national Government and the county governments is based on the latest accounts approved by this House. The Committee is accordingly instituting drastic measures to ensure that accounts are up to date. This includes the following:- (i) The Auditor-General will not be permitted to go beyond the three months ceiling in preparing the audited accounts and presenting them to this House. We, nonetheless, remain alive to the human resource and financial constraints in the Kenya National Audit Office and urge a significant rise in the budgetary allocation to the office of the Auditor-General in the Financial Year 2014/2015. Indeed, it is regrettable that the The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}